Regrets?

Im glad you are having fun with words yaamba...its fun to have fun...

ASAdvocate said...
Pratoman, I had just joined another PCa forum when you were discussing your diagnosis and recall the thoughtful and open posts you initiated. You appeared to me to have researched, asked, sought, and pretty much acquired all the input you needed to be comfortable with your treatment decision.

Regrets? You seemed to have been doing everything you could to have the best outcome. Other than what you mentioned about the months lost, which is what happens to anyone facing such a challenge, you should be proud and pleased with how you handled yourself during that time.

Thanks ASA, yes I feel that way. As I said, my only regret is my panicked and obsessed state, but it's not regret that I beat myself up for, it's just the way I am. As far as treatment choice, timing of action, due dill, etc, I feel really good about not only the outcome (so far) but the path that led me to it.

I feel bad about not being on that other forum much these days, I just don't have the time. But I try to drop in on occasion to say hi.

Knowing what I know now, what would I have done differently?

With the changes my life has been going through over the last few months, I'm glad I did what I did when I did it. If I had waited a year (done AS, and I did consider it), and then had needed treatment in the spring of this year, then I'd be recuperating from surgery and loosing my job at the same time. I don't think that would have gone well, not at all.

The key, as others have put it, is about acceptance. Not only accepting what the outcome IS, but being willing to accept whatever the outcome might be before the fact. Now, that's hard to do, but it's vitally important to try to get to that point. To use another phrasing I've learned elsewhere (and some of you may recognize the source), we have to learn to look back without staring. Acceptance does not mean that we have to like it, or approve of it. It means that we are able to say, "I did the best I could with the information I had at the time" and "It is what it is".

I also look back and remind myself that I had to make a decision based on what I understood at the time. New findings, new treatments, that are coming online today are great--for the guys just getting started today. Saying, "If I'd just hung on till NOW, then things would have been different" is a pointless exercise.

Up to today, I have no treatment regrets what so ever. I'm happy with the way I handled it. I decided when they started scheduling my treatments that I would treat it as a minor inconvenience rather than a life threatening disease.

So far, its paid off handsomely for me.

lifeguyd said...
I blame myself for not doing more research. All of the forums, including this one, said trust your doctor. He knows best.

I hope (and I believe) that this is one of the things that has changed significantly in the last nearly 10-years since your treatment.

Today, more often than not, the predominant guidance you will find is to "educate yourself" and to be an "empowered, knowledgeable patient."

This forum saying " trust your doctor he knows best " No way...if that were true the forum would implode..having said that I tend to hyper-bolate when the emotions take over the brain and funny kine stuff is said...releasing hot air...known here as a vent...a nuance of gloss without the shine...

First post on this forum. I've been reading but this thread is of great interest to me. I was diagnosed with PC in November 2014, had high dose radiation brachytherapy plus IMRT for 5 weeks in February/March 2015. I got through the initial side effects and, so far, PSA is low after an initial bounce at ~ one year out. My main regret is that I never really understood that life isn't forever. After prostate cancer and treatment, I really now understand that there are no guarantees in life and that you need to make each day special. So that's exactly what I do. I try not to waste time, to not do things that are unimportant (except cleaning and other stuff my wife tells me to do), and to plan each day with something meaningful and rewarding. Funny, everybody should live their lives knowing that we're only here for a short time but it often takes a traumatic event, like cancer, to really understand the concept. Which makes me also realize that cancer is not all bad if it helps to focus your life on the things that are really important. So that's the deal for me. Prostate cancer changed my life in bad ways and in a good way. My regret is that I should have figured all this out much earlier without the "cancer wake up call.